We don’t ordinarily think of pastel colors as carrying the power or intensity of the deepest, most vibrant primaries, especially red; or for that matter a dense black or sharp black-and-white contrast. But pastels can have great associative and mnemonic power, in many instances as distinct and intense as that of any other color; and there are a few such colors I find simply irresistible. Just for starters I love pink. Okay big surprise (or not). But it can’t be just any pink. Show me the wrong pink (e.g., certain bubblegum shades) and I’ll get nauseous so fast, you’d be smart to get out of my way. Pink oxford shirts are great. I like a certain baby pink you see in a lot of sweaters. I love the carnation pink of a certain kind of hosiery that’s only available in certain Roman haberdasheries. I like Schiaparelli (‘shocking’) pink, certain hot pinks and the pink of neon signs. Then there’s salmon pink and we’re already in slightly treacherous terrain. I had a great salmon-pink cashmere cableknit I probably would have worn out if my late cat, Stella, hadn’t claimed it as her personal throw. (It eventually became her burial shroud.)

But my favorite is probably the pink I associate with Eloise – the children’s book written by showbiz legend, Kay Thompson (in her 6 year-old alter-ego’s voice) and illustrated by the great Hillary Knight. It’s a kind of confectionery pink most often seen in the physical world in cherry and strawberry confections, strawberry ice cream; as frosting on cakes and cupcakes and sugary pastry garnishes and decorations. (And you thought I only wore Viet-Cong black?!) Okay I’m sick of black (not that I can’t be excused for wanting to hide in the deepest, darkest, blackest cave imaginable), but I’m not alone in my recent predilection for confectionery pastels. You see it everywhere these days – in fashion, design and décor certainly, but not just design. We’re desperate for anything to take the heat off – physically (we’ll break heat records again this year; and L.A. is on the brink of drought oblivion), politically (Donald Trump has easily outgassed Sempra’s Aliso Canyon methane leak), financially (the markets swoon helplessly everyday). Reality isn’t just biting, it’s melting our faces off.

We’ve actually been seeing this for some time, before the first of the anthropocene climate catastrophes, the global financial melt-down, the disintegration of the Middle East into a terrorist atrocity zone. There was the second Tim Burton adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with its contrast of Charlie’s Fair Isle grays and Willy Wonka’s irradiated pastels, purples and maroons. (The production design was by Alex McDowell.) Then there was K.K. Barrett’s genius confectionery production design for Sofia Coppola’s history-reimagined-as-amusement-park rendering of Marie Antoinette. (The costumes were by Milena Canonero.) There are aspects of Versailles that can, in a certain light, resemble cake decoration. Disney glommed onto this pretty quickly with their Frozen franchise. But it doesn’t stop there, as I was reminded only this morning with a Quartz brief on the phenomenon of Disneybounders – “young adults who dress up not exactly as Disney characters, but in clothes that evoke them. Their subculture seems to represent a blurring of the line between children’s and adults’ entertainment—a very Gen-Y, liminal space that juggernauts like Disney are just now starting to get to grips with.” More on that in a minute – it’s fairly obvious that there are far-reaching cultural implications here.

Whether we want to barricade ourselves behind a labyrinth of ice, disport ourselves across a Versailles-like wedding-cake landscape, or lose ourselves in a Plaza Hotel suite made of ice cream parfait (I opt for the third), artists Scott Hove (a sometime Banksy collaborator – appropriately enough, he was involved in the production of Dismaland) and Baker’s Son (a/k/a Keith Magruder) have seized upon these complicated impulses – for escape, for immersion; the simultaneous flight and fight reflexes that impel us uncertainly towards resistance and defiance, sheer denial and fulsome fantasy – for the most ambitious incarnation to date of Hove’s Cakeland – six rooms of floor-to-ceiling cake, ice cream and confection sculptural installation at Think Tank Gallery. Hove and Baker’s Son call their magnum opus, Break Bread; and the few glimpses offered here in Think Tank’s YouTube video promise that (echoing the distant consequences of Marie Antoinette’s shrugged-off dismissal to her subjects) imaginations will run riot. Treacheries abound, as they usually do, amid the treacle and trickeries. But whatever reality we’re bringing or escaping, the most immediate impact is likely to be sheer enchantment. Including tonight, there will be 30 days of it, including special Valentine’s Day events planned for tomorrow. As a certain denizen of the Plaza Hotel might have put it, “Oh my lord there’s so much to do.”